


Alastor Versus the Infernal Treasury

by ckret2



Series: Alastor Week [7]
Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Demon Deals, Demon Summoning, Gen, they're not actually 'original' demons; i ripped em outta demonology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:14:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25817122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ckret2/pseuds/ckret2
Summary: Someday, Alastor is going to be dead. Before that happens, he's going to make sure of two things. One: that he's accrued as much power—political, social, or supernatural—as he can, to ensure that his afterlife will be as cushy as possible. And two: that he's purchased none of these boons at the cost of his soul.But it's exhausting, draining work, buying up postmortem power at the cost of a little bit of his mortal existence at a time. And the demons Alastor is bargaining with keep offering him very generous loans—with his soul as collateral.
Series: Alastor Week [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1863841
Comments: 6
Kudos: 68





	Alastor Versus the Infernal Treasury

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Alastor Week](https://twitter.com/SchwiftyChicka/status/1275649386781999107) Day 7: "Neon time/ **It's a deal then?** "
> 
> Decided to put a twist on it and make Alastor _not_ the one who holds all the power in the bargain. I think this makes a nice contrast with [Day 4's fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25753294), which is roughly the same setup but with smaller stakes and a softer resolution.

Inside the summoning circle stood a demon who looked deceptively human, except for their colorless gray skin and their face—or faces—many faces, flickering between visages each time the candlelight illuminating the summoning circle flickered, each visage as flawlessly beautiful and handsome as marble statues with the eyes and cheeks and lips painted to give them the illusion of living warmth, standing patiently with a massive grimoire strapped to their back.

Outside the summoning circle sat a mortal, sitting forward with his elbows on his knees, his laced hands and hunched shoulders shaking. He was so sweaty his glasses threaten to slide down his nose. The Brilliantine oil that should have been slicking his hair back was losing its hold, leaving his hair coming free in wavy clumps that dangled down to his chin and that he'd only made hasty halfhearted efforts to sweep out of his eyes.

"My Lord Dantallion," the mortal said, leaning forward to bow as best he could despite his obvious exhaustion, "or Dathyn, if you prefer?" He had a tired smile fixed hard on his face; he'd long since found that some demonic nobility would refuse to do business with mortals who didn't show unflinching courage. "Please forgive me for not standing to greet you—particularly after dragging you from Zagan's service. You're rather exhausting to call upon." Especially considering how many other calls he'd made lately.

Dantallion scoffed at the mortal's childish attempt to offer their own name and their superior's name to them as if it was proof he held some sort of secret knowledge. "Alastor. What a loaded name. The title of a spirit sent to avenge filicide, parricide, and siblicide," they droned, as if to say, _see? I can do it too_. "Alastor, a word that means one of _my_ kind with the skill to mount one of _your_ kind—whether you have asked for it or not. Alastor, a twenty-four-hundred-year-old Greek insult for meddlesome little scoundrels. Alastor, supposedly the name of one of the horses hauling Hades's chariot when he kidnapped Persephone." The demon looked Alastor up and down. "Although perhaps one of Hades's horses was a hart?"

Alastor sat with his hard smile fixed in place—unflinching as Dantallion slyly showed off their knowledge of his parricide, their knowledge that he had been raised in a faith that used the term _mount_ where a Christian would say _possess_ , their knowledge of and irritation at his recent persistent meddling in the affairs of infernal nobility—but what finally made him wince was being called a hart, and he wasn't sure why. It was like Dantallion had plucked at something in his soul he himself hadn't known was there.

(And he wouldn't understand it until he himself was in Hell and could lay his glowing eyes upon his hooves, his fur, his ears, his antlers.)

"You've been active lately," Dantallion said dryly. Alastor had met a few demons who could read minds, and he was fairly sure from his demonic studies that Dantallion was one of them; but he wasn't sure whether their comment came from that or if Alastor's reputation was just spreading among the nobles. He'd struck quite a few bargains just in the past few months. "I wonder, these days how far do you have to go out to find somewhere to hunt where you aren't trampling on your own sacrifices' bones?"

"Too far," Alastor said honestly. Not that his kill count was that high— _he_ didn't feel that it was that high, anyway—but it turned out it didn't take very many kills before police started looking more warily at men coming and going from one's preferred hunting spots. It hurt like a delirious midnight fever to take time away from the radio studio to go hunting; it hurt like a slow starvation to swallow down his hunger for fresh prey and suppress the urge to kill. When the hunger got too strong, he made long, sleepless trips to fresh hunting grounds farther and farther from New Orleans; and then before the fever had time to set in he would rush, exhausted, back home to his broadcasting booth.

"Well then, what is it you want to buy? Other people's secrets? Esoteric knowledge?"

"Not buying," Alastor said. "Selling." He picked up a silver knife—not a proper dagger for magic work, just a piece of old silverware, hardly a butter knife—but he'd had the edge of it sharpened.

Dantallion scoffed. "You've got nothing that we didn't give to you! What in all the realms do you think you could offer that wouldn't be easier to buy from whoever sold it to—?"

Alastor nicked his left index finger with the knife.

Before he even had a chance to hold his hand up, Dantallion was lunging toward the edge of their summoning circle, eyes almost inhumanly wide, hands curved like claws to try to seize Alastor's wrist—but they stopped themself just before crossing the circle's perimeter. They certainly could have demolished the circle if they wanted to; Alastor knew he didn't have the skill to hold something much powerful than an imp. An infernal noble who stayed inside the circle did so out of courtesy, knowing that they stood to gain more from an occultist through a bargain than through brute force.

If the temptation of Alastor's blood was enough to nearly drag a duke out of a summoning circle and then enough to force them to remember their manners and reign in their desire, then it was exactly as powerful as Alastor had hoped. He turned his hand around to show Dantallion the tiny cut and the unnatural onyx black blood slowly oozing from it. Blood was already a potent enough ingredient—in alchemy, in potions, in all sorts of spell work—but what Alastor had done to himself, he knew full well, shot its potential through the roof.

"Sweet Satan," Dantallion whispered. "Who all did you bargain with to brew up this sludge?"

"It wasn't all bargains. Some of it was my own work."

" _Really_ ," Dantallion breathed. They crooked a finger toward Alastor, beckoning him closer to the circle. "Let me taste it. I can't properly assess its value without a taste."

"How much?" Alastor asked.

Dantallion blinked at him in amazement. Their eyes changed colors each time their eyelashes fluttered. "You'd make me pay for a _sample?_ "

"No free samples. How much?"

Dantallion stared a moment longer; then pulled loose the knot on the cords strapping their grimoire to their back, slung the heavy tomb forward, and flipped through. "You don't seem the sort willing to bargain for a love spell, are you?"

Alastor laughed harshly. "Horny obsession spells," he said dismissively. "If I wanted one of those, I could brew one up myself. My _mother_ could brew one up with leftover _soup_." And probably _would_ if he asked, the way she worried over his perpetual bachelorhood.

"Not as effectively as a duke, she couldn't," Dantallion said, although without any passion, already knowing they weren't getting Alastor that way.

"The more effective it is, the less I want anything to do with it."

With a swirl of their fingers, Dantallion highlighted a page in their book so that red numbers danced in the air over it. "I'm willing to offer ownership of a whole soul for a drop of that blood."

"Is that out of your personal coffers or Hell's treasury?"

Dantallion's sour look was enough to confirm that it was the treasury.

Which meant either Dantallion was willing to play fast and loose with embezzlement in front of a mortal they knew full well had been bargaining with half of Hell's nobles, or they thought Alastor's blood a potentially valuable resource to the state. Alastor would figure out which later. "Ten souls." If Dantallion had offered him an entire soul, it had to be worth much more.

"Five."

" _Fifteen_."

He'd expected pushing the price up would drive Dantallion to cede the ten.

Instead, Dantallion said, "One hundred."

Taken aback, Alastor stammered, "I—deal."

Dantallion pressed their right palm to invisible barrier marking the perimeter of their summoning circle; Alastor gripped his seat's armrest to lift himself enough to pressed his left hand against Dantallion's hand, sealing the deal without either of them crossing the barrier to shake. Dantallion pulled back and licked Alastor's blood off their index finger, then inhaled deeply, eyes shut, head tilted back, grimoire hugged to their chest as they savored the flavor; and Alastor was left mentally kicking himself for agreeing to the bargain so fast, wondering how much that drop was really worth.

Finally, Dantallion let out a long sigh and opened their eyes a slit to gaze down at Alastor. "Look at you," they said, the same cruel smile twisting across one pair of lips after another. "Your soul's still yours, but you've sold everything else around it to us. Your virtues, your innocence, your time, your labor, your faith—and now you've even started selling us your own body. New Orleans really lives up to its reputation."

Alastor sagged wearily back into his seat. He felt momentarily compelled to defend New Orleans's honor, then decided that would probably make him the only person in the city to do so who wasn't on the tourism board. "Does anything other than my soul matter in the end?" Riches, relationships, a body, a life—all of them he could only hold onto for fifty, sixty years. Trading all those temporary things would be worth it for all the boons he was going to enjoy in perpetuity in Hell.

Scornfully, Dantallion asked, "In the end, how much are you going to enjoy your naked soul if you've given away everything around it? The scars on your flesh might not come to Hell with you, but psychic wounds cut deeper."

"Is this concern?" Alastor asked. He almost laughed, but it came out as a huff of breath hardly stronger than a sigh. "From a big bad duke to little old mortal me?"

"No. I'm just making sure to tell you so—so that, when you're a shell shocked wreck begging for spare change on a street corner in Dis, I can honestly say 'I told you so.'"

It was a surprise to hear such a modern term out of such an ancient being. Alastor understood shell shock. He'd seen men shivering from it in France, too terrified to move, too terrified to think. War hadn't done that to _him_. Pointing a gun at men instead of at deer had given him a rush of euphoria, had awoken something in him—a light-headed hunger, a ravenous rapture—that he'd spent years trying to suppress.

When he was pulled back from the front without the rest of his unit, he was later told it was because of the shell shock. He didn't think he'd experienced any. He didn't recognize the face of the man they'd taken a picture of in the field hospital and claimed was him.

"Not me," Alastor told Dantallion, lacing his hands together again to try to still their shaking. Even if he did arrive in Hell as mad as Dantallion thought—by the time he got there, he'd be powerful enough that his madness was going to be everyone else's problem, not his.

And what stability did he have left to lose to the demons, anyway? He was a murderer years before he was an occultist.

Dantallion paused thoughtfully; then said, "You don't really want to sell to me. You're going to try to bargain with Berith, aren't you? Of all of Zagan's direct subordinates, he's the real alchemist—he'd make the most use out of this blood."

Alastor didn't even have it in him to be surprised at Dantallion's guess. "He's also a damn liar," Alastor muttered. "Or so I hear. I wanted to get its value appraised first."

"Hear from whom? One of those little _pamphlets_ you mortals have put together on our kingdom? Which one—the _Pseudomonarchia Daemonum_ , maybe? The _Dictionnaire Infernal_?" (Alastor could feel those exact texts back in his bedroom in the same way he sometimes felt eyes burning on the back of his neck when he was being stared at.) "Tell me, scoundrel—if an exorcist says that one demon is a liar and that the next nine are not, does that mean the other nine are honest—or does it mean they're better liars?"

"I can't imagine a duke would spend a hundred souls on a drop of blood if it's worth _less_ than that."

"Or maybe a soul to a duke is a penny to a Vanderbilt," Dantallion replied archly.

"Then I can't imagine a Vanderbilt would seal deals where they only stand to profit a penny," Alastor said. "Or _would_ they? You've probably got a couple down there you can go ask, don't you?"

Dantallion smiled coldly, silent for a moment as they sized Alastor up. "Clever," they said tersely. "Berith will give you souls for blood, all right. You might even talk him into paying you a fair price. But he's not going to give you what you really want. Not for all the souls you could possibly collect."

Alastor's cursed blood ran cold.

Berith was another demon employed in Hell's treasury, and one of Hell's experts on souls exchanges. He was known as one of Hell's sleaziest and most successful bargainers. Alastor didn't look forward to dealing with him; the main reason he'd called on someone else in the treasury to appraise his blood first. But eventually, he _had_ to deal with Berith.

Any noble demon worth summoning had a boon they could, for the right price, offer to a mortal. Berith's was the ability to entangle mind control with a bargain. Psychic influence over anyone who had formally agreed to make a purchase. Perhaps even the power to psychically influence somebody into making the purchase. Such a power would be invaluable. Alastor had the galling, sickening feeling that he'd climbed as high in his radio station's hierarchy as he'd be allowed to go without either paler skin or outside leverage, and Berith certainly offered leverage.

But more important than the mind control and the mortal benefits, receiving the power to influence minds through bargains came automatically bundled with a treasure Alastor coveted even more: the power to directly bargain with other humans for their souls. No more fighting through the haze of blood lust on a hunting trip to ensure his mind was properly focused to mark his next murder as a legitimate sacrifice. No more begging spare souls off of demons in exchange for an ever-escalating series of favors, errands, crimes, and blasphemies.

If he could bargain for souls himself, then he could arrange his own trades, acquire his own souls, without murdering for each and every one of them. And more than that, he could get his foot in the door as a figure of power in Hell before he even arrived—he could climb above the rest of the sinners and stand among the ascendant damned who'd achieved the same power as the natural-born infernal natives.

But to get any of that, he needed to get through Berith.

Who, according to Dantallion, wouldn't cooperate.

Alastor stammered, "Wha—Why not? I know his prices—whether I pay in souls or blood, I can offer _far_ more than he usually charges for his boon."

"Yes, I know you can," Dantallion said patiently, as though they were explaining a simple concept to a child, "but it's obvious to any of us who have so much as _glanced_ into your head just how desperately you want it. And that's why he's not going to give it to you. Because he'll know he can name his price. And you know what price he'll name."

For a moment, Alastor's mouth worked silently as he searched for words. A wry voice in the back of his head reminded him not to leave too much dead air or the listeners would change stations. "But—even with everything I've done to improve it, my one soul can't be worth as much as, as—as a whole mountain of souls?" Alastor was distantly proud of how even he kept his voice; so professional of him. "He's not so determined to get _my_ soul that he'd turn down a better bargain?"

"You think he can't get your soul _and_ everything he wants?" Dantallion asked. "He's been experimenting with a new sort of deal. One that doesn't involve the mortal agreeing to extravagant terms and forfeiting their soul upon death if they don't meet them. Instead, the mortal can keep paying off their deal after death and buy their soul back. Like indentured servitude."

Alastor's stomach lurched.

"That's what he's going to offer you. He'll offer to grant his boon for something absurd like ten thousand souls, to be paid upon your death—and if you haven't collected it all when you die, then he owns your soul... until you manage to collect the remaining balance in the afterlife. It should be a lot easier to collect an extravagant amount of souls once you've got his boon to work with, shouldn't it?"

And then, once Alastor was dead, Berith would find ways to sabotage Alastor's progress, find ways to deduct souls from his balance, find ways to add interest or extra charges, and Alastor would be spending the rest of eternity paying off the debt.

The worst part was—despite all that, Alastor was already considering the wisdom of taking the deal. Because he _needed_ the ability to bargain for souls independently. He was burning himself out, working with demons through the barter system without any way to independently accrue their primary currency. He _had_ to have Berith's boon.

He was already trying to think of whether he could find a way to game the system, find a way to pay back his debt all at once immediately after he died—some way to viciously collect ten thousand souls all in one fell swoop—if he built up enough postmortem power before he died, it might be possible, it might even take his creditor by surprise... The risk might be worth it in exchange for the power...

And that was probably exactly what Berith would hope he'd think. Alastor was tempted to walk right into the trap even when he could see exactly what it was. Even when he had not yet met Berith.

"I'm not warning you because I've developed any fondness for you, scoundrel," Dantallion said. "But because if he's the one who gets your soul, he's going to be absolutely _insufferable_. Do the rest of us a favor and don't give him the opportunity."

"Noted," Alastor murmured. Was Dantallion really warning Alastor, he wondered—or was this part of some big con Hell's treasury department was running? Was Dantallion being honest, or were they just the better liar, here to get Alastor thinking about Berith's future bargain and soften Alastor up to the idea?

Alastor had been cautioned by other occultists about working with demons. They'd warned him that mortals never really had the upper hand against demonic nobility, and that anyone who thought he was the exception was an arrogant fool and the most vulnerable to being manipulated by them. Alastor had agreed; and he'd done his research; and he'd been meticulously careful and thorough; and he'd thought that made him the exception.

"Thank you for the sample," Dantallion said. They slung their grimoire onto their back and knotted the cords to tie it back in place. "It was delicious. Shall I advertise your wares to the other alchemists in my circle?"

"Please do," Alastor said numbly. "I can always use free advertising."

Dantallion mockingly half-bowed to Alastor; and then disappeared.

The candles blew out.

Alastor ran his shaking fingers through his hair and buried his head in his hands.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes!!
> 
> \- Until we see more Goetic demons in Hazbin & Helluva, for their characterization and portrayal I'm drawing on the demonology work being produced by Caretaker [@normal-horoscopes](https://normal-horoscopes.tumblr.com/), who's doing a damn better job of combing through medieval demonology texts and synthesizing them into logical-sounding texts than me and my ADHD ever would. They've got Zagan positioned as hell's treasurer because he can create coins and also is skilled in alchemy; and Dantallion as one of Zagan's subordinates, in charge of keeping track of hell's records of who owns which souls; and Berith as another subordinate, guard of the treasury. Beyond that, if y'all wanna know more direct info about how Caretaker describes them, I recommend subscribing to their patreon because their demonology research is better than anything I myself would be able to do.
> 
> I'm also following Caretaker's lead on referring to Dantallion with they/them pronouns because they're described in old school demonology texts as having both masculine and feminine faces; but old school demonology texts also tend to refer to all demons as he/him regardless of how their gender presentation is described, so if I've fucked up a few times and used he/him lemme know so I can fix it.
> 
> \- "one of my kind with the skill to mount one of your kind": in Voodoo, the loa (spirits that work as intermediaries between humanity and god) largely communicate directly with humanity by possessing a human, which is referred to as "mounting" and "riding" their body as if it's a horse. This sort of possession generally takes place in a designated ritual space, is supervised by a priest/priestess, is invited by the ritualist who gets possessed, and is seen as a great honor. Which puts it in extreme contrast with, say, your typical demonic possession—a contrast Dantallion is keen to remind Alastor of.
> 
> I'm still feeling out how exactly I'm gonna incorporate Voodoo in Alastor's history, considering that it's a maligned and semi-closed religion. Curretly I'm fairly certain that, because of how thoroughly misunderstood, misrepresented, and misinterpreted Voodoo is in mass media, I _do_ want to continue to interpret Alastor as a Voodoo practitioner— _but_ I want to separate his Voodoo from all of his magic and all of his evil. So Alastor is shown as pursuing supernatural power strictly through demons rather than loa, and mentions are made of him feeling estranged from his faith; that's all there to draw a sharp dividing line between his magic/demonology and his Voodoo.
> 
> \- "New Orleans really lives up to its reputation": during the Gilded Age/late Victorian, prostitution in New Orleans was so rampant that the city gave up on trying to crack down on it, marked off a neighborhood called Storyville where prostitution was legal, and told all the sex workers in the city to move there—which they did, bringing bars and gambling along with them. It was so normalized that a dude running a bar in Storyville was elected to Louisiana state legislature. Storyville was active 1897-1917, roughly the years Alastor was growing up, and exacerbated a reputation New Orleans already had for being a big, stewing pot of Sin, Vice, Crime, And General Indecency. These same years had what-may-or-may-not-have-been-Mafia crime, the vicious reversal of what had been comparatively progressive civil rights for POC, and—shortly after Storyville's closing—mass hysteria over the serial killer known as the Axeman of New Orleans. Writings/interviews from residents of the city during this time were generally either 1) complaining about the sin in New Orleans, or 2) complaining about the moral purity campaigns put on by the people complaining about the sin. So it's probably not a stretch to say that if an actual demon rolled up to someone who grew up in New Orleans in the 1900s-1910s and said "this place sucks" they'd probably go "yeah, that's fair."
> 
> Post for this fic available on [tumblr](https://ckret2.tumblr.com/post/626036048937500672/alastor-versus-the-infernal-treasury) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/ckret2/status/1292681539189448704?s=20). If you enjoyed the fic, comments/reblogs there are highly appreciated (as are comments here)!


End file.
